


Exploration of an abandoned complex

by PestoQueen



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, nagisa protects rei's dignity, rei finds books and nagisa finds blackberries, theres also a cat for 10 seconds if that interests you at all, they climb through a window and almost fall through the stairs, they're walking through old buildings having fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 03:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4331259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PestoQueen/pseuds/PestoQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nagisa and Rei are exploring an abandoned collection of buildings in a woods they've found after jumping off the bus and onto a couple of random trains. I hope you enjoy it!</p><p>If your wondering what type of buildings they're wondering in and out of, they're something like the run down concrete buildings shown here (not the fancy or haunted ones): https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=abandoned+complex+in+the+woods&client=ubuntu&hs=Buq&channel=fs&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Ci2jVdlipc3KA9zpr-gI&ved=0CCQQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=969#</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exploration of an abandoned complex

The ground was damp under their feet from where the roof above had caved in, last night's rainfall varnishing the floor. Boots leaving imprints as they passed by, bubbles of mud left to slowly disintegrate as they moved on. Entering the next room, they were faced with a collection of dust laden chairs arranged in a square. A table could be seen between them, decked with a pack of cards and a cat for company.

"Aw! Look Rei-chan, there's a kitty in this one!" Nagisa squealed, completely ruining the silence of the previously undisturbed room. He ran up to the cat with outstretched arms as though he would be pulled towards the creature faster that way. Hissing, the cat lunged backwards missing his fingers by a few inches then finished it's escape by scampering right over Rei's feet, eliciting an oh so very beautiful shriek from Ryugazaki's mouth.

"Well that was short lived." Nagisa commented, mouth falling down into a frown. The cat disappearing through a crack in the wall behind them.

"That is what happens when you run up to wild animals Nagisa-kun. I don't think it really liked your shouting either to be honest." Rei responded rotating his head, taking in the latest room they'd found. So far they'd made their way through around half of the buildings they'd seen, with only two minor accidents. Rei had fallen backwards when they were entering the second shed they'd approached due to an owl making it's exit as he tried to enter, after this Nagisa declared he'd better take the lead to protect Rei's dignity. Not about to try and argue that his dignity was perfectly fine as it was, he brushed off the leaves he'd landed in and followed his then giggling partner though the open door frame.

The second incident was as they were climbing the stairs of the next building. Nagisa was attempting to taking the stairs three at a time just as the one he was landing on gave way. Fortunately he jumped back in time to avoid falling through the now broken panels. After that, Rei managed to convince him that they should stick to ground floors only, he had received a reluctant nod of conformation. That however, didn't ban Nagisa from choosing an alternate method of speeding up their movements. Lunging was what he'd decided on as a replacement activity, successfully picking up the pace. He sped straight through the rooms that offered little interest to him, Rei only able to delay him in a few rooms which displayed a couple of especially intriguing paintings that took his fancy. So far they'd been wondering around the complex for around an hour. Apparently this was taking its toll on poor Nagisa's stomach.

A gurgling noise could be heard from the direction of the older boys stomach. Nagisa exaggeratedly bent over in two and clutched at his middle. "Ah, Rei-chan, I think I'm going to die! Can we stop to eat?" Adding on an extra wail at the end to finish the act while slumping over on to the dust covered table beside him, the grey fluff surrounding his arms puffed up and covered him in a light film.

Observing his mess of an outfit he snorted, but then freezed in place. Slowly he raised his head back up. But his smile had gone. His giggling stopped and a firm unmoving grin remained on his face, eyes locking with those of Rei.

Rei knew immediately he was in trouble; he'd seen this face before, too many times in fact. He took a step backwards. His first mistake. His second stride was where he signed his will and the third accompanied by his attempt to pivot and run hammered the last nails into his coffin. Nagisa's eyes didn't even need to look at his partners feet to know how he was going to try and flee. Their brains worked in sync; like clockwork. Nagisa pounced, aiming his most heavily dust ridden sleeve first towards Rei's retreating face then his other coming up behind his neck to lock him in place. Fastening his hold before he could wriggle out of his grip any further.

"NAGIS-A-AAAAA!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH, STAY STILL!! JUST A LITTLE ON YOUR FACE, PLEEEAAASEEE! THAT'S ALL."

"NO! GET YOUR HANDS AWAY FROM MY MOUTH. NAGISA-KUN."

"ALMOST THERE. AH, GOT YA!" Nagisa cheered himself on and jumped back away from his victim.

Rei spluttered, craning his neck away from the now withdrawing culprit, vigorously rubbing at his cheeks with the back of his hands, desperately trying to make sure none made its way into his mouth. He had tried to keep his lips clamped shut, however having Nagisa's hands so near his face meant he'd failed almost immediately from shouting out unheard protests. Straightening himself back up he fixed the other boy with a glare and decided he wouldn't get anywhere with words. Instead he re-arranged his back pack on his shoulders and started moving towards the next room.

Only taking Nagisa a second, locking onto the situation almost immediately, he launched himself onto Rei's bag tassels.

"Oh Rei-chan, don't be mad! I didn't mean to upset you." Nagisa began running after Rei, through into the following hall way and straight into his back.

"Heyy, I'm sorry Rei-chan, please don't stay mad." He continued, rubbing his head into the middle of the shirt in front of him. This managed to stop Rei's footsteps and he twisted his upper half round to look behind and down at the pouting face rubbing yet more dirty matter onto him.

"Okay, okay! Alright, I forgive you, please stop transferring even more of that stuff onto me. Please!"

Nagisa immediately jumped back looking happy again evoking a sigh from Rei. He wasn't really mad at Nagisa and he could tell easily that the both of them knew it. Plus Nagisa's quick recovery from his apology made it very clear his act was entirely put on, fortunately for Nagisa though Rei found this amusing rather than irritating. Fully turning to face him now, Rei leant forward, pulling Nagisa into a quick hug.

"Ok, no more dust please" he finished the conversation and released him again pushing him slightly forward to get him walking down the hall way. "Lead the way, oh protector of my dignity."

"You got it!" Nagisa chimed saluting then scuttling off to locate the next most interesting room to declare their treasure to explore. Nagisa peeped his head through each of the frames before moving onto the following. The fourth however caught his attention due a large deep set window spanning the largest wall. It reached from the top of the left corner and across three quarters of the rest of the wall, the last quarter was instead blocked by a large book shelf stuffed from head to toe with dark looking books and a couple of ornaments shoved in for good measure. Leaning back out of the room he whistled, signalling Rei to join him.

Excited to see what might be on the other side of the window, he ran straight in to peer out, taking in everything he could see at once. Ivy however party obscured his vision as it's vines had crawled about half way across the wall, both inside and out. However from what was visible, he was ecstatic. Directly in front of them was first a field of bluebells and beyond that, a small play park. Swinging round as soon a Rei entered the room he bound towards him and latched onto his arm.

"Rei-chan, look outside!" he mouthed, his elation clear on his face and emotion way too high to fully sound words.

Pulling Nagisa along with him to have a look out the windows he immediately spotted what must have peaked Nagisa's joy. There was a tire swing, rickety slide and a roundabout to finish it off. It was off through the forest, a few hundred meters away, and past a couple patches of nettles and thorns. Looking to his now deadening arm, Nagisa's eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets, locked onto the swing.

"You want to go over there?" Rei checked although sure of the answer.

"Yes! Let's go now." Nagisa confirmed releasing his hostage and instead pressed himself as close to the window as he could, palms flat against the glass.

Rei stepped back to view the whole window to see it's condition. The bookshelf to the right however was what stole his attention and he was immediately taken. He began reading all the titles off the scruffy books muttering a few of them out loud when he recognised them.

"Wow, they really did have a good collection here. I've been looking for a couple of these myself but they've been booked out of the library for consecutive weeks. Oh this one! I'd given up hope on you! 'Triathlon Anatomy'... nobody would mind if I borrowed a couple of these would they? It's not like anyone lives here anymore and these clearly haven't been touched for years!" Rei was out of breath by the end of his mini speech and Nagisa had even pried his eyes of his prize to see what this excitement was about. Wondering over he twisted his body so that he could turn his head to the same angle as Rei's and read the titles alongside him.

Standing back up again, he stretched his hands above his head, clasping them together and standing on his tippy toes. "Are some of these good then?" He began to pull at his arms and bounce on his calves. Rei only fervently nodded and stuck his hand out to pull on the particular book his eyes were glued too.

"I'm sure no one's going to miss a single book from a collection this full if I just take this one, no one's going to notice. Right?" He looked for confirmation from Nagisa.

"Oh yeah." Nagisa agreed straight away, serious expression on. "Not a soul will be using these otherwise. If anything, I'm sure the previous owners would love it if their beloved books moved onto new loving owners." He declared easily supporting Rei as he continued his stretches in preparation.

"Yes, my thoughts exactly! Ok, I'll be taking this one then." Rei finished pulling the book off the shelf giving it one last brush to remove the most stubborn dust before reaching back to store it in the bag.

"Ok, right, now let's get out there!" Nagisa encouraged, eyes wide and focused on Rei.

"Right, yeah, ok." Rei acknowledged. "We need a way out of here first. I think this shelf is blocking the door out of this room though."

"No worries, let's just take the window instead."

"Huh?!" Rei choked on his own spit. "What?"

"Look here," Nagisa was already walking over to his previous location in front of the window as he bent down and locked his grip around a handle, previously unnoticed by Rei. "I'm guessing that if I lift this thing like so-" his hold tightening even further and thrusting all his power into forcing the rusty lock upwards. It creaked and little by little it gave way and eventually screeched into place. "Ay. There we go! Now I just need to push it here-" the window final wrenched clean "-and if you'd just look at that, it's open!" He wound back round to Rei and completed his performance with a slight curtsey and smiled widely as an impressed Rei stepped forward with a small round of applause. "Thank you, thank you, it was really nothing." His grin broadening and turned back to the window.

Then back to business, he elevated his legs upwards and to the left slightly, sliding through the tight space he'd made available. Landing, not so gracefully down, on the other side, then returning his hands back inside to coax Rei to follow him.

"Your turn now. Just lift one leg up and you can easily bend and pull the rest of your body out. It's not hard, I promise."

Rei met his eyes sceptically and looked back to the tiny hole Nagisa slight frame had just about fit through.

"Um. I'm not sure I'll fit through just as easily as you did, let's make it a bit wider first. Now my height is approximately 177cm and I weigh 65kg-ish. I can definitely jump though from this height to the ground outside and I have the flexibility to manage an awkward angle like that. I'd say around another 5cm added to that gap should allow me to easily slide out."

"Right on Rei-chan! Let's do that then. I'll hold onto the outer side of the window and pull and you land your weight on the centre and force it outwards." Nagisa proposed.

Rolling up his sleeves Rei stepped forwards and spread his hands out across the panel in front of him as Nagisa grabbed onto the inside of the window and held on securely.

"On three then" Rei begun, "one, two... three!" Both of their full forces landed at the same time, it's reluctant hinges giving way to an extra few inches.

"AH, we did it Rei-chan! Yess!" Celebrating Nagisa dancing around with his hands in the air.

Smiling at the sight Rei ducked, now with the new space now provided, and climbed out of the accessible hole. Catching himself as he landed in a buttercup patch, he paused to push his glasses back up his nose and then caught up to Nagisa.

"You know it would have been allot less effort to have just walked back through the building and exited the way we came in Nagisa-kun."

"Yes, but that wouldn't have nearly been as much fun now would it?" Nagisa fought back with an adorable smile.

"Well" Rei cleared his throat "Yes, very true, well lets continue on then." He finished stepping forward while offering one hand to Nagisa as the other rose to cover his cheeks. Like this they started moving onwards, set on reaching the abandoned equipment that was waiting for them, ever so invitingly.

They struggled though a couple of particularly thick patches of thorn bushes here and there but overall it wasn't too much trouble and as a result they did find a couple of blackberry bushes. However before Rei had any chance to stop him, Nagisa had already released his hand and was bounding across the woodland, ignoring the nettles nipping at his ankles and attacking the fruit for all it had to offer. By the time the first shout had left Rei's mouth, he had managed to eat a handful of the seedy black things. Nagisa circled back to Rei offering him a couple to try himself.

"Nagisa-kun, you can't just eat whatever you find in the forest! You could poison yourself!" He exclaimed.

"Don't worry, my mum's shown me these before, I know these are safe, come on try one."

"No thank you, I'm not risking it, no matter what your mum might have said before, you shouldn't risk it either!"

"But Rei-chan I already told you I'm so hungry." He paused, "can't you hear my stomach" Nagisa pressed his hands into his belly to make his point clearer.

"Hpmf. Ok, well, if you vomit make sure your not facing me."

"So mean Rei-chan!"

"Anyway, were really close now. Look over that way, about 100m away you can see the roundabout."

"Oh yeah, let's go!"

"That's what I was doing..." Rei muttered out but let himself be dragged along anyway via his forearm towards the now much closer equipment. Nagisa was careful to make sure that he avoided both the low lying branches and delicate flowers surrounding them, steering Rei behind him. After 2 more minutes of navigation they finally clambered out of the thicket and stepped out onto the still over grown, but shorter, grass patch. As they encroached on Nagisa's first choice of activity - the rubber tire - a few birds flew off the path and up into the braches above. Nagisa's eyes followed them to the sky.

"Wow, look up there Rei-chan. The tree branches above our head look like they're the skeleton of the forest. Those five there are the fingers... see?" Nagisa raised his arm, pointing to a cluster connected to a particularly large tree just beyond where they were standing.

Rei nods in response half understanding what he was motioning to. Lowering his view he rotated his head to view the park from all angles, checking to make sure they hadn't missed anything that could be important or hazardous. He doesn't notice too much he hadn't seen already, there's a couple of extra ropes tied around a few of the trees near the swings. They appear to be past attempts that had obviously broken, each rope now at a different state of decay. Over towards the slide, there were a large number of spiky looking plants settled at the bottom which would have to be removed before its use. Lastly the roundabout looked the most intact with just a few daisies growing on the rainbow coloured seat. To be quite honest Rei thought they were pretty cute and could easily be left, no need to remove beauty when it wasn't harming them.

"What do you want to try first Rei-chan?" Nagisa questioned in a bubbly tone clearly ready to sprint off to where ever Rei wanted to test out.

"Why not start with the swing. From what I can see it looks more stable than the slide and it's also clearly what you want to try out the most." Before Rei could finish his explanation Nagisa had already made a direct manoeuvre towards the tire which was currently slowly swinging in the breeze. The light sprinkling of tarmac bellow could hardly be seen through all of its cracks and green matted moss coating. Obviously not a deterrent to Nagisa, he leaped and landed directly on top of the seat causing it to bounce and Rei to flinch as though he thought it might have been about to fall.

"Nagisa-kun, please be careful! You don't want to cause it to snap." Rei chastised.

"Haha! Don't worry Rei-chan, I haven't eaten in a few hours." He reassured him sticking his tongue out as he stretched his legs and launched himself off from the nearest tree.

Knowing he wasn't going to be getting anywhere with disagreeing with him Rei dodged out the way of Nagisa's feet flying over his head and calculated where the best place to stand to both avoid death and also to push Nagisa higher would be. Three steps left and five forward sounded about right. Ducking under again he found his position and grabbed onto Nagisa's back as he flew directly towards him. Rei tensed his fingers and backed up a few paces more before lifting his arms till he couldn't extend them any further and let go.

Nagisa flew. He literally flew.

"Whoa!!" He was launched down from his position in the sky, the momentum drawing him back up again at the opposite side. "Ahaha! No hands!" Nagisa started off screaming and ended with a laugh. "Can I go higher? Can I please?" Nagisa begged, beaming down at Rei. Clearly the push was a good move.

There was no way Rei was going to be able to deny him when he had a smile like that plastered on his face. Lifting up his arms again he forced the tire even further than before as it haphazardly swung back at him. Nagisa was now leaning to one side causing the rope to spin him widely in a counter clockwise direction, this reducing Rei to a pile of fussing arms flailing around below in case the smaller were to fling off the swing. Nagisa above simply ooh-ing and ah-ing as he discovered new heights.

After a while Rei finally gave in and took his retreat, breathing deeply once out of the firing zone, heart rate returning to normal. Nagisa out stretched his hand as he begun slowing down and called out for a high-five, showing his appreciation for Rei's efforts. His finger tips barely reached Rei's attempt to reciprocate the action, his limp arms extending to touch the hand. Rei made sure however, to give attention as Nagisa was climbing down as sometimes Rei wasn't sure if Nagisa was aware of his own recklessness.

With feet firmly planted back on the ground Nagisa bounded over to the now recovered Rei. After checking with Rei numerous times, that he himself didn't want to have a go on the swing, they moved on. Rei was adamantly against the idea despite Nagisa's reasoning of "it really was worth the dizziness!" and "if you hold on really tight it won't hurt as much when you bash into the trees!" Rei won the argument with his promise to join him on the next ride instead.

The roundabout was the next choice; Rei sat himself down on the cold metal platform, Nagisa taking the initiative to start the equipment spinning. Using his right foot first he began to push on the railings and the cogs underneath jolted into motion. Using the force of his body weight, he pushed the circle forwards and repeated the motion until it freely spun. Rei shuffled over on his seat, not wanting to be the landing mat for Nagisa's next movement as the smaller boy posed to jump. Feet left the ground with a precise leap and landed on the now spinning base of the roundabout.

"Ah! I wasn't sure if this thing was going to start moving when I first went to push at it."

"It would make sense for the mechanism underneath to be pretty rusted up when it's clearly not being maintained by anyone." Rei agreed.

But the cogs were freely working now as Rei could definitely feel the force of the spinning pinning him down in his seat. He reached out his arms motioning for Nagisa to move towards him then grabbing him once he was in snatching reach.

"WAH! REI-CHAN! I wasn't expecting that, I could have flown off the side." Nagisa chided through his giggling.

"Yeah, you could have, but you know I wouldn't let go of you like that." Rei, not managing to keep a straight face, broke at the end into a snort.

"Oh my god, Rei-chan. You of all people being reckless? I never thought I'd see the day." Nagisa finished off.

"I wouldn't have slipped up don't worry." Rei responded letting silence elope them as they just sat and spun at whatever crazy speed Nagisa had managed to force the rickety old piece of metal to move at, Nagisa settled in Rei's arms.

As the roundabout slowly screeched to a halt Nagisa stood up while pushing Rei back into his seat, preventing him from following. Only confused for a split second Rei returned to his position. Nagisa jumped off and started pushing for a second time, this time he tried for a smoother take off and an overall longer journey, then returning back to Rei-chan's lap. This continued on for another fifteen minutes and only had to end as Rei though he might vomit if they went for an eleventh round. Nagisa agreed that ten would be satisfactory and slid off his lap only to connect them by the hand instead. He leaped off with Rei in tow, focused now on the slide.

Nagisa drew them to a stop directly in front of the slide, spotting the problem that Rei had noted earlier. The spiky plants.  
"If we land in this were gonna get sore butts." Nagisa pointed out the obvious.

"Yes, so we're going to need to clear this stuff out of the way first. Hmm, any ideas?"

"My current thought is that we could try to kick them all out of the way." Nagisa tried to sound convincing, failing.

"You mean literally kicking the plants, roots and all?" Rei confirmed sounding stumped.

"...um, yes?" Was Nagisa's reply.

"Ok, lets do it." Rei settled.

"What? Were actually going to go through with my first idea? Like that thing that should be the last thing we try, were doing that?"

"Yes, you sound pretty pessimistic now, wait, should we change the plan?"

"No! no no no! I was just surprised that's all! Let's get kicking!" Nagisa erupted with energy, Rei was never sure where he got all that drive from. Was he hiding a secret on how to store energy or create it when one required it the most?

Either way Rei nodded in agreement and they both started throwing their feet towards the largest plants and then gradually towards the smaller. Once the main obstacles had been removed they tidied up the mess by dragging their feet across the floor where the main bundle had once been, removing the squished leaves and tiny plantlets. The job didn't take half as long as either of them had anticipated, only totaling around five minutes in total. Rei decided that it was mostly due to Nagisa's extreme want to get on this slide.

Standing back they took in their efforts before Nagisa's patients wore out and he ran for the ladder.

"You coming Rei-chan?"

"One second, I want to try and capture a picture of you in motion down the slide first."

"Oh yeah! Good idea, I'll try and pull my best face for you." Nagisa eagerly agreed.

And that's what led to the following half an hour being filled with laughter from both sides riding down the slide and trying to capture the other in motion with as little blur as possible. This turned out to be much more fun than Rei had anticipated as some of the photos he caught of Nagisa had him bowled over backwards with cramps and tears of laughter pricking his eyes. It turned out that Nagisa's best faces really meant his funniest along with a few miss haps of people falling off the side of the slide onto the floor, all caught in photographs as evidence. Even a few where Nagisa couldn't make it to the top of the slide before collapsing in another fit of giggles and falling off the ladder.

By the time that they were done both Rei and Nagisa had bruises all up their legs and arms. Rei even had a mini collection of leaves he had pulled from his hair. However before leaving the park for the final time Nagisa brought up the camera and took a photo of the two of them spinning back on the roundabout smiling. It was a perfect keepsake and summed up their adventure pretty well. Eventually, they did manage to give the overgrown park a wave farewell and begin their journey back home.


End file.
